Outdoor cabinets for housing electrical components are widely used in cable television (CATV) and other kinds of systems. These cabinets must protect the electrical components housed therein from harsh environmental conditions such as adverse weather. In addition, these cabinets must be secure to protect the electrical components inside from tampering and vandalism. It is also desirable that these cabinets allow easy access to the electrical components therein to facilitate their installation and servicing. Also, these cabinets should be as small and inconspicuous as possible. Finally, these cabinets should be relatively inexpensive to manufacture.
Conventional cabinets of the type just described have some of the foregoing characteristics, but they also have several drawbacks. For example, they typically use two different types of doors which are aligned one over the other, with a first door used to access an equipment area positioned in the top of the cabinet, and a second door used to access a battery and cable entry area positioned in the bottom of the cabinet. Two doors are used because each door is fabricated to have distinct protective characteristics dictated by the different types of components housed in the separate areas of the cabinet accessed by each respective door.
Specifically, the equipment area needs to be tightly closed and gasketed to protect the equipment housed therein from the outdoor environment. By contrast the battery and cable entry area needs to have an opening to allow cables to enter the cabinet from the ground. In addition, the battery and cable entry area is not gasketed since it has to be ventilated to allow hydrogen gas emitted by the batteries to escape. This required ventilation is typically achieved by means of louvers. Using two different types of doors rather than a single door increases the cost of manufacturing such conventional cabinets. In addition, more time and effort must be expended to unlock and open, and close and lock, respectively, two doors as opposed to a single door.
However, even if a single door were used, conventional cabinet doors are unlikely to achieve a sufficiently tight seal around the equipment area due to the louvers used to ventilate the battery and cable entry area. Also, a cabinet having a single door may have latching problems, since a single, multi-point latch may not provide an airtight seal. In addition, using a separate latch for each one of the two different door sections requires that extra time be expanded to lock and unlock each latch. Furthermore, an individual accessing the cabinet might forget to lock one of the latches. If a latch is not used for the bottom area of the door, this bottom area of the door may be easily pulled away from the cabinet and vandalized.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a door for an outdoor electrical cabinet that protects the equipment area from the outside environment while also ventilating hydrogen gas out from a separate battery and cable entry access area. It is another object of the invention to provide a door which is easy to open and close. Another object of the invention is to create a door which is less expensive to manufacture than two separate doors. It is a further object of the invention to provide an door that effectively discourages vandalism. It is also an object of the invention to provide a door that requires only a single action to close.